


Too Many Rays (On This Dancefloor)

by canadasuperhero



Category: Generation Kill, due South
Genre: 5 Things, Gen, I'm so sorry, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadasuperhero/pseuds/canadasuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Liaison’ is like the TARDIS of Due South — it is the completely logical explanation for everything if they cannot use ‘because undercover’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Many Rays (On This Dancefloor)

**Author's Note:**

> It's really a Four Things About Three Rays and I am still so, so sorry. 
> 
> At least partial knowledge of either series is going to be needed for this story because Due South has a lot of injokes and Generation Kill has a lot of inbreeding.

_-1- “Later, Person and Kowalski will compare possible MRE recipes and the multiple uses of M &Ms (smarties?) as a sugar supplement while Vecchio and Brad spend their free time casually one-uping each other with retarded Ray stories.”_

  
  “Ray!”

  Both Vecchio and Kowalski turn immediately, barely refraining from socking each other or muttering ‘ _not it_ ’ out of the corner of their mouths as they squint into the harsh sunlight together.

  Ray shades his eyes with one hand, trying to narrow in on the brown summer uniform he hasn’t seen Benny wearing since back in the day amongst all the other shades of brown to be had. “He’s wearing wool in the middle of the desert. No one has a right to sound that pleased while possibly cooking from the inside out.”

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph knows Ray’s about to die and he’s wearing as little as common decency allows.

  “He’s not human, Vecchio, just get over it.” Kowalski doesn’t look much better then him — blond spikes melting pathetically and face set in mulish determination to hate everything and everyone around him. The retard keeps picking at the fasteners to his flak vest and pretending that his sunglasses make him look like James Dean when really he just looks like he needs a nap.  

Vecchio slaps his hands away. “Stop picking at it, Stanley.”

  “Don’t call me that, you overbearing bal—”

  “Ray!” It’s clear that Fraser means both of them this time and his sharp tone makes Ray feel like he’s just been caught cutting his sister’s pigtails off. Fraser himself has his Stetson held in front of him in both hands, clearly removed for polite introduction purposes if the grinning sack of regulation uniform and milkshake beard behind him is any indication and who the hell is he that he thinks he can look like a strawberry just came all over his face and still laugh at them?

  “Who’s this douchebag?” Thankfully Vecchio doesn’t have to dig himself a deeper hole, not with the Wonder Polack around. Strawberry Facial just grins wider, licking obscenely around his whole mouth behind Fraser’s back and nearly giving Kowalski a heart attack if the increased jittering against Vecchio’s shoulder is any indication.  

Fraser apparently chooses to ignore all of this, his face tightening in his Disappointed Mountie expression for an instance before he smiles again. “Ray, Ray? I’d like you to meet Cpl. Ray Person; his father was an old friend of my fathers’. Ray, I’d like you to meet Det. Ray Kowalski and former Det. Ray Vecchio.”  

There’s a headache already building right between Vecchio’s eyes and it only gets worse as Fraser continues cheerfully on. “Ray was my liaison with the Chicago police department for several years before he went deep undercover while Ray came in undercover as Ray and for reasons that don’t really need exploring at this juncture are both now my unofficial liaisons while I’m liaisoning with your unit, Ray.”  

Person’s jaw drops to his chest and the MRE milkshake drops after it, splattering pink across the sand.  

A long, low moan rises into the following silence and then the slap of flesh-on-flesh as Kowalski drops his head into his hands.

  “There are too many fucking Rays in this desert.”

 

* * *

  
   _-2- ‘Liaison’ is like the TARDIS of Due South — it is the completely logical explanation for everything if they cannot use ‘because undercover’. Convoy traveling across Iraq with a group of Marines? Obviously there needed to be a strong Canadian presence and what better showing then a Mountie ~~also Iraq is totally a better place to sweep Fraser under the rug then Chicago was, the RCMP will be thrilled!~~_  


  
Kowalski sets his jaw. “No, no I am dunski with this shit, Fraser. We went and we searched for that Franklin hand thing and that was cool but I was a poptart there for a while.”  

“A popsicle, Ray?”

  “Whatever, that is not the point here, Fraser. The point is I was a frozen foodstuff for a while and now you’re all like ‘Ray my most beloved of friends, I have grown tired with the wilds of Canada and I have licked all the things in Chicago and I think we should broaden our horizons—’ ”

  “Now, Ray, I don’t think licking anything came up anywhere in the conversation.” Fraser smoothed his thumb along his eyebrow.  

“ '—the Marine Corp has kindly offered me this opportunity to perhaps lick multiple explosive devices which I will then tell them how to defuse because _licking things gives you all the answers_ —’ ”

  “I’ll go with you, Benny.”

  “…Let me go pack my fucking bag.” Ray stomps out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Thank you kindly, Ray.”  

“Yeah, yeah, just make sure you shove the Ritalin in his MREs or this entire invasion is going to go sideways quickly and we’re going to end up staked out at the side of the road by angry Marines.”

  Fraser’s smile is suspiciously, knowingly amused as he shows Vecchio out of the Consulate. “Somehow I think Ray will be just fine, Ray.”

 

* * *

  
_-3- Somewhere along the line someone calls Fraser a limp-dicked liberal communist and receives a long, involved lecture about the socio-economical pros and cons of Communism and how it differs greatly from the Liberal outlook on life. Everyone wanders away dazed and quietly arguing about it. Fick is amused but this isn’t That Story. This is the story of Limp-Dicked Liberal Communist Pussies and Their Fanboys._  


  
Reporter follows Fraser around for a while, wide eyes never veering from the Stetson that Fraser seems to get away with wearing in place of an actual god-damned helmet. They’re all still in MOPP suits and it should look ridiculous but really since it’s Fraze all it ends up with are starry-eyed reporters forgetting all about their original purpose as embedded correspondents and trying to write fluffy human interest pieces.

  It is absolutely the most amusing thing to Ray about this whole expedition next to Person — hopped up on things Ray is pretending he has not seen; nope, never, not him, oh look is that a peanut butter MRE? — trying to win Rolling Stone’s attention back with his sudden and shocking revelation about the root of all war being pussy (or lack thereof). Ray is not really surprised when Person wins the Reporter’s tiny heart and soul back. It’s a surprising sound theory if you completely ignore how it’s all a bunch of bullshit.  

“I have,” Person drawls out. Having successfully diverted Reporter away from the nervous Mountie and instead embroiled the poor fuck into an argument about the possible distribution of Juggs in Red Cross Relief packages, the marine collapses against the wheel next to him. His gold-rimmed sunglasses perch cheekily on his helmet and nearly blind Ray a few times while Person struggles out of the top half of his MOPP suit, appearing to lose half his body-mass in the process. “Always depended on the kindness of strangers.”  

“Don’t do it, Person.” No way are they having this conversation. Nu-uh, no way, no how. Ray narrows his eyes behind his sunglasses and looks around for Walt. Walt usually saves him before this ends up a musical.  

Person’s eyelashes fucking _flutter_ at him. “Why it’s hard to stay fresh in hot weather when I haven’t washed or even powdered.”

  “I will kick you in the head!”  

“Why I do declare!” And here it comes, Person’s grin is the most shit-eating thing on this whole planet and Ray takes back everything nice he ever thought about him. His fist balls up at his side. “You must be Stan—”

  “Cpl Person, were you aware that Joshua was a prophet of the Hebrew Bible? Indeed, he took over in the leading of those very people upon Moses’ passing.”

  “No shit! I’m Brad’s leader?”  

“Just so, yes.”  

“Fuck yeah! Brad. HEY BRAD! BRAD, YOU HEBREW MOTHERFUCKER, COME SHOW YOUR RAY-RAY SOME RESPECT! I LED YOUR PEOPLE TO _FREEDOM_ , HOMES!”

  Ray’s fist relaxes back against his side as Person wanders off to abuse and be abused by his one true Nordic love leaving Fraser to slide gracefully into the spot he’s vacated. “Sgt. Colbert is probably not going to think that’s buddies, Fraze.”  

“Yes, well, the state of my friendship with Sgt Colbert is not, I’m afraid, my main concern.”  

The two of them sit in silence for a while. In the background and all around them is the loud hustle of a marine camp — dropped ordinance and ‘whiskey tango’ idiots fighting with nasal Italians. The occasional pop-pop-pop of guns in the far distance.

  Finally Ray grins, giving the air in front of them a one-two punch. “I’m calling dibs on Poke’s car.”  

“Victor, Ray.”  

“Whatever. So long as it’s Vecchio and not me sitting in that tin can with Sgt Iceman and Corporal Deathwish and that burger baby kid.”

  “…As you say, Ray.”  

“Ha.”

 

* * *

  
_-4- All Rays are vindictive creatures._  


  
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, being in Bravo’s lead vehicle is worse then Sunday dinners with the entirety of the Vecchio clan, Fraser, Stella and Stanley all together; he is going to shove Kowalski’s head into the first rotting camel he finds when they stop.

  Vecchio spends the first five hours of this road trip from hell dozing in the backseat. He’d have spent more time doing so but apparently Sergeant Colbert took the backwoods mom-fucking jokes one step too far in retaliation to Person’s high-pitched musical rendition of The Prince of Egypt. Now the crazy fucker is swerving the vehicle in sharp jolting jig-zags at terminal velocities while explaining, at the same speed, exactly why he should have let Brad’s people remain slaves to the man because no one should take orders from a burning bush which was obviously just a metaphor for the people’s desire for ‘like, _bush_ , homes’ which is just leading his argument back around again to the War versus Pussy scenario.   

Listening to that horrifying monologue while riding Person’s version of the Tea Cup ride is bad enough but every swerve brings a munitions tube of some sort rolling forward into the back of Ray’s head. It rolls into the back of Wright and Trombley’s heads too but that isn’t actually a comfort because Trombley, against all odds and Marine imagery, is whinging like a cranky five year old. A cranky five year old who just wants to shoot things and possibly gut Fido. Wright presses Ray further back into the door with every passing minute.  

“Wright, do you want to give me some room here?” Ray hisses finally, when a particularly nasty swerve delivers a one-two punch of canister and Wright’s elbow. This of course prompts Person to turn fully around in his seat to see what’s going on in the back.

  “Jesus fuck, Reporter, you’d think you were going to prom with the poor fuck!”

  “Watch the road, watch the road!”

  “What road? Oh, that road!” Person doesn’t even glance out the front window, which does nothing to alleviate the terror on either Wright’s face or Ray’s own. “Dude, whatever, the only thing around is a couple of camels and some severed limbs and we’ve already run over a few of those without anyone complaining.”

  Vecchio presses his hands to his face and breathes out slowly before drawing his leg up and kicking the back of Sergeant Colbert’s seat. Hard. This is Colbert’s fault and he deserves to feel it.  

Brad jerks forward a bit — Ray can see his head bob — but he doesn’t react otherwise for a very long minute. “Ray.”  

“What?” Both Vecchio and Person snap back and Wright giggles, this nervous high-pitched sound.

  “Joshua Ray Person,” Colbert clarifies and Ray stores that away for later. “Your buck-toothed dog of a hick father must have peed in your mother to beget you but, and I am saying this only once, the only fault of hers is that she didn’t drown you at birth. Now turn the fuck back around and stop telling Reporter how best to give Vecchio a lap dance. Trombley shut up and Reporter, stop trying to be the bun to Vecchio’s Italian sausage and sit. The fuck. Back down. Or I will get Lieutenant Fick to turn this war around right now.”

  Person is silent for a moment before his face breaks out into grin and flings himself right-way around in his seat. “You heard your father, kids.”

  The humvee steadies out into something like a smooth ride and Vecchio can hear the Marine equivalent of “thank the baby Jesus” echoed along the comms from every single vehicle behind them. He can also hear Kowalski’s nasal laughter; he is going to bury his skinny Polack ass alive.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to send hatemail.


End file.
